Posted on 08/19/2005 5:13:27 AM PDT by AliVeritas
AMMAN (Reuters) - Three rockets were fired at two U.S. Navy ships in Jordan's Aqaba port on Friday, but they missed their targets and hit a warehouse and a hospital, killing a Jordanian soldier, and striking the Israeli port of Eilat.
A Jordanian security source said authorities were searching for three men in the Katyusha missile attack, which was launched from an industrial warehouse area near the entrance to the city.
"We are searching for a Syrian and two Iraqis who are in Aqaba and used Kuwaiti number plates," the source said.
Immediately after the attack, the two U.S. amphibious assault ships, which had been on a joint training exercise with the Jordanian navy, weighed anchor and headed for the safety of open water.
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said "one or two" Katyusha rockets fell in the airport and hotel
(Excerpt) Read more at in.today.reuters.com ...
A group linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility in an Internet statement. The statement purportedly from the Abdullah Azzam Brigades could not immediately be verified.
The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said two American amphibious ships attached to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit were docked in Aqaba, about 210 miles south of the capital, Amman, when the missile was fired toward them.
The vessels later sailed out of port as a result of the attacks, U.S. Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown told The Associated Press in Bahrain.
The attacks come amid a time of tension in the region marked by Israel's withdrawal from the Palestinian Gaza Strip and several terrorist attacks on Egypt's Sinai Peninsula during the past year, including the July 23 attack in Sharm el-Sheik.
The three Katyusha rockets - weapons routinely used by Palestinian militants and Lebanon's Hezbollah group in attacks against Israel - were fired from a warehouse in Aqaba that was rented this week by four people holding Egyptian and Iraqi nationalities, Jordan's state-run Petra news agency reported citing preliminary investigations.
Jordanian soldier Ahmed Jamal Saleh was fatally wounded when the missile sailed over the USS Ashland and slammed into the Jordanian army warehouse at the port, a Jordanian security official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The soldier died in an ambulance taking him to hospital, while another unidentified Jordanian was also wounded, the official added.
No American sailors or Marines were injured in the attack on the vessels, which were apparently taking part in routine exercises with the Jordanian military and had docked at the mouth of the Red Sea port earlier this week.
Brown said a rocket flew over the USS Ashland's bow at about 8:44 a.m. and crashed through a nearby pier warehouse, leaving a 2.5 meter hole in its roof.
The Jordanian official said another missile landed near a public hospital about 1.2 miles away. It was unclear if there were any casualties or damages caused.
In neighboring Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat, police and witnesses said a Katyusha rocket fired from Jordan slammed into a taxi traveling near the city's airport, but did not explode.
"I heard a noise, the car shook, and I kept driving for two more meters," said Israeli cab driver Meir Farhan, 40, who suffered mild wounds. "I didn't realize what it was, (but) when I went out of the car I saw a hole in the ground on the asphalt."
The rocket left a small crater in the road about 15 yards from the Eilat airport fence, said local police commander Avi Azulin.
Aqaba and Eilat are about 9 miles apart and located on either side the Jordan-Israeli border at the northern end of the Red Sea close to the Sinai Peninsula.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, speaking in southern Israel, said the attacks were "intended to hit the Israeli side and the Jordanian side as well."
Jordan, which is home to 1.8 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants, and Israel signed a 1994 peace deal.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, but Islamic extremists have long criticized Jordan's U.S.-allied moderate government for its peace treaty with Israel and close ties with the West.
The Katyusha rockets are a largely inaccurate unguided weapon that have been used by Palestinian militias in attacks on Israel plus during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war by most parties to that conflict. The 127mm Katyusha rocket has a range of up to 17 miles.
The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah is known to possess several thousand Katyusha rockets and has used them to attack Israeli positions along Lebanon's southern border with the Jewish state.
It is rarely realized, however, the potential danger such rockets could pose to Israel's main population centers should they fall into the wrong hands. The Katyusha Rocket "Multiple Rocket Launcher" BM-21 pictured here could be easily taken apart and smuggled into a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. Individual Katyushas can be launched from a pipe using just a car battery.
To people like the Sand Savages, one can only wonder at tossing crude rockets a not one, but two US Naval vessels specifically designed for amphibious assults.
And they chose the timing soooo well - just after the US forced the Israeli's out of Gush Katif.
Of the Sand Savage leadership, one can only think "Smooth move, Bowels."
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